A Marauder's Memories
by mische
Summary: A delve into the mind of Remus Lupin after he confiscated a certain piece of parchment from Harry, a piece of parchment that rooted up deep memories from the past. [One shot]


**A Marauder's Memories**

**A/N:** This piece was inspired by Tinaling's art, which is, by the way, fantastic beyond description! Her drawing of Remus in "Old Memories" gave me the idea to write this. And, on a side note, yes, I am having a serious case of writer's block. Urgh. Go one-shots!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own _Harry Potter_ or any associated characters, plot, scenarios, or ANYTHING to do with the series!

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I think I'm in shock. 

My brain is just on automatic mode, my feet hastily shuffling to my office without thinking, my hands opening the door, closing it, locking it.

It's in my right pocket. Just take it out. It's just a piece of parchment.

Right. Just a piece of parchment, my tail.

Gently, now.

Blimey, I can't believe this.

Are my hands shaking?

I simply cannot believe this. I refuse to believe it. There are too many memories that go with this. And I don't want to remember. Not here, not now.

Do I?

This, this parchment I hold in my hands, right now.

How in the name of Merlin did Harry get this?

I gently place the old parchment down on my desk and unfold it carefully. With my right hand, I grip my wand and hold it inches above the parchment. It's shaking like a leaf in the winter wind.

Should I?

I glance at my office door, ensuring that I am alone, all safe and locked in.

"I solemnly swear that I am up to no good."

I hear those timeless words come out of my mouth as I tap the parchment, a hoarse whisper that doesn't sound like my own.

_Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present _The Marauder's Map.

Oh, dear Merlin.

Memories, welcome or not, I'm notquite sure, swamp my brain and pull me out of my candlelit office.

I am suddenly a fourth-year again, in the boys' dormitories, skimming the pages of my Ancient Runes book in preparation for the exam tomorrow. James and Sirius burst in after discovering a secret passage for the first time, being the brilliant yet troublemaking minds they were. They were each carrying a huge bag of something in their arms and poured it onto the floor. Candy. Loads of it.

_"Where is it? How'd you find it?" Peter asked eagerly, chewing stickily on a gooey piece of fudge._

_"We just sort of…stumbled upon it," James shrugged. "We were trying to get away from Filch, and we ended up in the Honeydukes cellar! Who wants a Licorice Wand?"_

_"Again?"I raised an eyebrow. "What did you two do this time?"_

_"That's just it! We didn't even do anything! Anytime Filch spots us, he would just come up with something so that we would get detention. That man holds the biggest grudges."_

_"You can't blame him," Sirius grinned, as if being on Filch's hit list was something to be exceedingly proud of. "You know," he mused, twirling his wand in his fingers absently. "If we found one secret passage to Hogsmeade, there's got to be more."_

_"What are you going to do? Find them all and write it down in a little notebook so you can sneak out to Hogsmeade whenever you feel like it?" I muttered. Little did I know what idea would explode in their brains from my careless comment. Just how careless could I get, letting the two run around and make my ridiculous ideas a reality?_

_Two pairs of eyes lit up simultaneously. I groaned silently, a bit freaked out. Sirius and James were so alike sometimes that it scared me. They were like one mind split into two people._

_"That's absolutely brilliant, Remus!" James exclaimed, leaping up from his bed. Then a frown came over his face, and his eyebrows furrowed into his glasses. "But not a list of secret passages…we need something better."_

_"No, that won't do," Sirius agreed, nodding._

_"How about…a map?" I suggested, not quite believing that the words had just spilled out of my mouth. I knew better than to egg them on. But the two were really quite something when they got an idea. I'll just say it's part of my duty as a friend to support them. Yes, that's it._

_"Yeah! A map!"_

_"A map of Hogwarts?" Peter asked, confusion scribbled all over his round face._

_"And all its passages!" Sirius exclaimed enthusiastically, his excitement mounting. The look on his face matched the one of a seven-year-old who had gotten a new broomstick for Christmas._

_"For future troublemakers, as our everlasting mark at Hogwarts," James added, a spark igniting in his hazel eyes._

_"Oh, what a great legacy," I rolled my own._

_"I know!" agreed Sirius, who, as usual, didn't quite catch onto the sarcasm._

I smile faintly to myself, remembering how easily Sirius had charmed the parchment to reveal itself at the proper words. He was always good at Charms. Merlin knows he was brilliant in every subject without listening to a single lecture.

_"What are you doing?" I asked, plopping down on an armchair next to Sirius._

_"Trying to figure out the exact charm I need," he replied, not stopping his poring over a thick Charms textbook. The heavy book was sitting on top of a pile of scattered parchment, which I assumed to be the History of Magic essay due tomorrow."I think it's somewhere on this page…" He continued to peruse the text, muttering to himself. "The index said it was here!"_

_I couldn't help but chuckle. "You seem to be so much more intent on studying when you're not doing actual homework."_

_"Well, this is actually important!" he grinned._

And Peter, who had a latent talent for calligraphy, expertly created the flourishing welcoming message.

_"What should it say?" he asked, doodling along the edges of a scratch piece of parchment._

_"Well, at least some information about what it does," I replied. "Whoever is using the map already activated it, so to speak."_

_"Should we just put our names on it?" James offered. "After all, we should get credit."_

_"But what if we get caught?" Peter squeaked._

_James rolled his eyes. "Peter, do we EVER get caught?"_

_I coughed excessively in reply, to which the lanky Quidditch Chaser rolled his eyes again. If he kept that up, 10 Knuts that his eyes were going to roll right out of their sockets._

_"We shouldn't put our actual names on it, though," Sirius agreed. Then a light bulb lit up in his head; I could see it in the way his eyes glimmered. "But…we could always put our, er,you know, nicknames."_

_My eyes widened. "You mean…" I trailed off, glancing at some nearby second-years._

_"Of course!" James exclaimed. "It's perfect! No one else knows what it'll mean." He lowered his voice to a whisper. "We shall just forever be known as Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs!"_

_"Oh, Merlin," I said, shaking my head tiredly. "Are we really going to carry through with this…whatever we're making?" I waved a hand towards the already charmed parchment._

_"Blimey, you're right! We'll need a name for this map!" Sirius cried. I couldn't help but laugh and groan. Sirius would never live up to the pun that was his name._

_"Well, that's easy," James said smoothly, waving a hand. "It'll be called the Marauder's Map."_

_We sat for a moment in silent, pondering._

_"Marauder's as in apostrophe 'S' or 'S' apostrophe?" I asked._

_"What?" Peter asked, the familiar expression of perplexity coming onto his face._

_"Well, it's our map, so shouldn't it be 'S' apostrophe?" Sirius suggested._

_"No, I was thinking apostrophe 'S,' because although it is our map because we created it, it technically belongs to the map-holding troublemaker." A triumphant glint sparked in James's eyes at the thought of helping a future Hogwarts student sneak off in secret passages._

_"Yeah," Peter said, just for the sake of saying something. "Okay, so it's Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot, and Prongs…" he muttered, scribbling practice flourishes on the scratch parchment._

I remember wandering aimlessly around the castle, only vaguely focused on finding a secret passage. Because you can't just go around looking for things like secret passageways. You just stumbled across them, as James and Sirius had.

I remember looking up complicated charms to carry through the idea of having dots on the map, labeled as people as they moved around the castle. This had originally been Sirius's idea to get away from Filch, but then I suggested having a dot for anyone the user had in mind. Later that night, as I pored over a ponderous Charms reference book and glanced up to see the other three doing the same, I mentally slapped myself for suggesting that idea. The charm was beyond our level, by far.

And yet, then, I remember that wondrous day that we had completed perfecting the piece of parchment.

_"Are…are we done?" Peter asked nervously._

_We all just sat there, staring at the parchment on the table. Were we really? Had we created the map for the ultimate troublemaker?_

_"Well, come on! Try it out!" I exclaimed, shoving the parchment into Sirius' hands. I couldn't hide the excitement in my voice, and part of me couldn't believe how eager I was to see this thing actually work._

_"No way. Not me. It was all your idea to start with! The honor is all yours, Messr Moony." He handed the parchment back to me._

_I blinked, first at him, then at the map in my hands. "Well, okay."_

_They gathered around expectantly, peering over my shoulder._

_"Go on!" James prodded._

_I nodded. "I solemnly swear I am up to no good," I whispered, voice loaded with anticipation._

_All eyes were fixed on the parchment we had labored over for so long. Suddenly, a flourish appeared on the page, flowering into twisted script that welcomed the user:_

Messrs Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. Purveyors of Aids to Magical Mischief-Makers are proud to present _The Marauder's Map._

_The welcoming calligraphy wove into a series of lines. Several moving dots came into view, each with its appropriate label. I looked at the parchment in disbelief. I couldn't believe it. We had done it. We had created the Marauder's Map._

_"It works! It works! It WORKS!" James cried jubilantly. He grabbed the nearest person, which happened to be Peter, and did a ridiculously choreographed victory dance while singing "It works!" over and over again. Peter wore an expression of absolute shock as he was yanked around in the jig, and Sirius and I laughed at the sight. Our laughter rose as Peter clumsily stumbled over his robes and over James' feet, toppling the odd pair over._

I sit there in my office, head in my hands, eyes shut tight.

I can hear our laughter, bouncing off the walls of the boys' dormitory. I can see Sirius rolling on the floor and clutching his sides, Peter's small eyes squinted even more in his squeaky laughter, James's dancing hazel eyes behind his glasses as his loud laugh rang clearly. And I am there, laughing with them, laughing at the silly entanglement of James and Peter on the floor, laughing at the success of our ridiculous Marauder's Map, laughing, simply for the joy of laughing with the three best mates anyone could ever have…

A noise outside my door yanks me from my reverie. The blurry parchment in front of me becomes clear as my eyes refocus. A small dot labeled "Snape" is coming my way.

Probably wants to know what this"parchment from Zonko's" was all about.

I smile wearily and tap it once again.

"Mischief managed."

**Finis**

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**A/N:** I actually enjoyed writing this. I know the verb tenses are really, really messed up, so any proofreading will be greatly appreciated! Remus actually turned out to be a really fun perspective to write, and I love to imagine the four best friends just hanging out. Thanks for reading and review as you wish! 

.mische.


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